What if I fucked up beyond repair?
What if I’ve really, truly lost her?
Bloody hell.
What did I do last night?
So I wait. I sit down on the couch and I wait and I wait until it becomes less about waiting and more about fighting. Because it’s guilt again and it’s hate and it’s shame and they’re coming around, trying to pull me under, smother me until I can’t take another breathe.
And out there on the street, in the nearest store or pub, there’s something that can take me far away from all of this pain. It’s even singing from the bathroom medicine cabinet, the Percocet, another way to numb it all away. I can’t pretend that I’ve not been popping a few of those every single day.
I put up a good fight though. I hold my ground, even though I know it would make the physical pain going away. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve thrown up already this morning.
Even as noon nears though, she hasn’t returned and I have no choice but to go to practice. It’s the last thing I want, the last thing I need. I don’t want to see the accusing looks of my teammates, I don’t want to feel guilty all over again, I don’t want to move a fucking muscle because of how sick I feel.
But I can’t fuck up absolutely everything in my life.
I slowly get ready and then leave Kayla a note on the hallway table in my chicken scratch handwriting.
I’ve gone to practice. Coming home straight after. Please don’t leave. I love you. We can work through this, please stay and wait for me.
I stare at it for a moment and the words sounds so soulless and futile, as if they could ever convince a woman like Kayla once she’s made up her mind. But I leave it there anyway because it’s all I can do.
***
Practice is unbearable. If it weren’t for people like John and Thierry, like my coach who seems to believe in me no matter what I do, even when I fuck up, I would have turned around the moment I stepped on the pitch. I would have just walked away. I’ve been through so much but everyone has a breaking point and today would have been mine if I hadn’t had a few supportive faces there.
The good news is that Denny will be fine. I guess being a bit drunk before the game helped in my favor because when I bowled into him, it wasn’t a direct hit against the joints. He wasn’t at practice though, which was a good thing because I’m not sure if I could have handled that, but Alan says he’ll return in a few days, ready for the big game. I don’t know what I would have done if it turned out one of our star players couldn’t play. As it is, I’m not playing in the first game anyway according to Alan, so we really would have been fucked going against Glasgow.
The drive from the stadium to my flat seems to go on forever. I’m kneading the steering wheel the whole time, knuckles white, afraid that Kayla won’t be there when I return. Is it possible that she just left and caught the next plane out? Maybe sticking around for her bags wasn’t worth it. Maybe fleeing me, the scene of our destroyed relationship, was the only way out for her. If she had her passport in her purse, it’s all she would have needed to vanish.
I can’t blame her. For all I know my hopes might all be in vain, that I’ll walk in my flat and see her beautiful face. Right now she might be somewhere over the Atlantic. Right now she might be heading back to her new life without a backward glance over her shoulder. Maybe that’s why my calls aren’t going through and my texts aren’t being delivered. She’s in airplane mode, heading far, far away.
The last time I was around her I didn’t even look her way. What if that was the last time I’ll ever see her again? What if my last memory of her is of me feeling too shameful to even glance in her direction? If I had known that would be the end, I would have grabbed her, held onto her with every ounce of strength I had. I would have stared at her so deeply that I wouldn’t know where I end and she begins.